Side by side at TOM: A study in contrasts. WW&F Locomotive #9 and Monson Locomotive #3 sit side by side with their trains at Top of the Mountain, just over 7 miles north of Wiscasset, Maine. Although these two locomotives never ran together back in the day, having the two side by side provides an interesting contrast between similar size machines built just 22 years apart, albeit by different manufacturers. WW&F #9 was built in 1891 by Maine's Portland Company, for the Sandy River Railroad. She retained some of the ornate features of other nineteenth century engines, such as the fluted domes, the tall, shotgun stack, the Russia Iron boiler jacket, and the beautifully arched, wooden cab. On the other hand, Monson #3, built just two decades later in 1913 by the Vulcan Iron Works in Pennsylvania, reflects the 20th century look of a work-a-day machine. Gone are the ornate domes, shiny boiler jacket and wooden cab. She's all steel, her features are simple and her paint is basic black. When it comes to simple, and plain, the Monson Railroad was about as simple and plain as it gets. Their locomotives had no headlights or dynamos. The ones you see were added after the locomotive was rescued by Ellis Atwood of Edaville fame. They had no cow-catcher pilots.....just a simple, wooden pilot beam. They even used link and pin couplers, right up to the end in 1943.
This winter photo event at the WW&F Museum in 2017 was an interesting and rare opportunity to see and photograph historic equipment from multiple Maine 2-ft. railroads operating at a single venue, on historic ROW.
